Hi every one,

I plan on upgrading my computer (based on a P4P800 Asus motherboard) by changing my graphic card, which is very average.

Now, I run XP, do not plan on downgrading to Vista, but I might eventually load one of the Linux distros around in a near future. Since I will not use any DirectX 10 features, I do not want to pay for those "nice new feartures" we can find in a very recent card.

I have an AGP slot on my mobo.

What would be my best move? Do you have suggestions? Should I buy a brand new card or look for a used one on eBay?

Thanks for any advice.

And by the way, do I have to mention that this card must be totally silent, that is passively cooled? Of course.

Patrick

If you lived in the UK I would offer to sell you my x1950pro for cheap, and you could replace the cooling with whatever takes your fancy, as I took my Zalman VF900 off it to install on my new card...

but alas your in Canada!

What exactly do you want the card for? Playing games?

The ATI 3850 cards are being released on the AGP platform, and they should be powerful and cool, as they're based on 55nm architecture I believe...

AGP cards are getting harder to get hold of and quite expensive, it may be best to try 2nd hand, and in most cases, just replace the cooling unless you can find a decent one with good fanless solution

Is this for 2D or 3D? Why are you replacing your graphics card? Do you play games and want more speed? Then why limit yourself to older cards when the new ATI 3XX0 cards run very cool and passive?

If you just want a passive graphics card for 2D, then any card will do. A ati 9200 or 9600 are good choices. I liked my Nvidia 5200. If you want a card for games, then there is no point in going with a DX9 card if you are buying new because you will not pay "extra" for that feature. You are paying extra for their increased speed, and even then you are not paying much extra for that speed thanks to the wonders of shrinking transistors.

So, if you are playing games, give us more info about the games you play, your computer, and your monitor resolution. If you don't play games, any AGP card will do.

I have an Asus A9250 Gamer Edition at the moment, and this card is not a gamer card despite what its title makes us believe in.

I play Valve's games, mostly Teamfortress 2. 1280 X 1024 resolution. 2.8 Ghz processor, Pentium 2. TF2 takes forever to load. I have 1 Gb of Ram, which should be plenty enough.

I will eventually format the whole HDD to load Linux, and want to use all those cool graphics effects with Beryl. This is why I need some good video processing.

Thanks for the help.

I recently replaced an old AGP Ati x850 pro GPU in my computer with a beefier HD3850.

I had the X850 coupled to a HR-03 and with a silent fan it barely ever reached 50 degrees and did that silently.

This is an old high end directX9 / SM 2.0b card but it still enabled me to play Oblivion at 1440x900 at decent framerates and games like Portal in the Orange Box ran pretty much maxed out. I replaced it because i could not run Bioshock (SM3 mandatory for that one). It is not high end anymore but i guess it would still be much better than the 9250. Apart from the SM3, the X850 is somewhat equivalent to a 7600GT on the NVidia scale.

When i tried Ubuntu, compiz could be enabled after a bit of tinkering with drivers and ran pretty well.

I think i would keep the HR-03 but i might consider getting rid of the X850 itself if it suits your needs and are ready to change the now-replaced stock cooling solution.

Best of all i am located in Montreal.

Do your research on the card and tell me if you're interested.

Otherwise, AGP solutions are difficult to find if you want to be able to play games. Most AGP cards you will find in IT stores are either too old, not powerful enough and/or overpriced. Before DX10 cards came out, the X1950 pro or the 2600XT were considered the cards to get your hands on but nowadays they are almost impossible to find or sold at higher prices than even the latest AGP cards like the HD3850 which can be found around $200 now. A bit lower-powered are the Nvidia 7600GT/7800GS/7X00 series but i haven't seen such cards for a long time on the market except the lowest-end versions. To check what might be available in MTL stores, there is always www.infoprix.ca

So it all comes down to what you need and how much money you are prepared to invest in your computer.

The 3850's will be the easiest to get hold of, as they've only recently been released, most other good AGP cards have stop been produced now, aside from the 3850 you should consider the x1950pro or the 7900 GS.

For linux I'd still put my preference on an Nvidia card, as from my experiance I've always had better support with Nvidia cards under linux out of the box, although ATI are getting better, and since been taken over my AMD they've gone open source apparently.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gam ... 805-5.html

Toms hardware do a pretty good roundup of best bang for your buck, check out the link above for Aprils roundup for AGP... if you can find a x1950pro or 7900GS going for a decent price on ebay or similar then it might be worthwhile...

I looked at shipping costs, its just not worthwhile to offer you my x1950pro as shipping alone would be about £30 ($60 CAD)

Thanks for all the info guys. I will start looking for used cards on eBay or something because I do not want to spend 200$ for a card with a soon to be dead bus. If I can find something for about 90$ to 100$ that will boost my current config., this will be perfect. Your advices were really appreciated.

Patrick

If this is why you are upgrading, then I doubt that change of GPUs does anything to it.

Just remember. ATI's "support" for Linux is spotty at best with the newer cards. That leaves the X850Pro as a good choice, but it won't do HDR lighting.

If you can find an X1800/1850 series in AGP, get it - the difference HDR lighting makes is astounding. Plus, my old X850 Pro would run FEAR at 4-5fps with minimum settings. The new X1800 does it at nearly maximum settings at a stable 30fps.

Whaooo ... I don't know what was the deal with FEAR on your X850pro Plekto. I remember the card being able to cope with FEAR without much problems at 1440x900 with most settings at medium i think..... I haven't played that game in such a long time i have no benchmark results in mind anymore though...

Ati's support for Linux has been bashed. Yes for a reason but nVidia's support isn't that good either. Besides Ati is soon releasing Open Source drivers for Linux's... I wish nVidia will make same thing.

I don't know, either. All I know is that my old system barely played it at the lowest settings if I so much as breathed on the lighting effects. The X1800 isn't even the best PCIe card out there, but it's worlds faster.

I especially love how I get blinded now and have to wait until the dust settles in games. I just wish the enemy AI was programmed to also get disoriented when the room is down to zero visibility.